Australiens künftige Atom-U-Boote – und der transatlantische Graben

Ein Staat auf der anderen Seite der Erde trifft eine Entscheidung über Rüstungsbeschaffung… und plötzlich scheint es im transatlantischen Gefüge, wenn nicht gar in der NATO zu knirschen. Der Plan der australischen Regierung, von den USA atomgetriebene U-Boote zu kaufen und dafür einen bereits geplanten Kauf französischer konventioneller U-Boote abzusagen, führt zu massiven Verwerfungen vor allem, aber nicht nur, zwischen Frankreich und den USA. Das Thema ist noch lange nicht am Ende, deshalb hier nur ein Überblick:

In der vergangenen Woche wurde, etwas überraschend, bekannt, dass Australien von den USA nuklear angetriebene U-Boote kaufen will. Außerdem ist ein regionaler Sicherheitspakt zwischen den USA, Großbritannien und Australien geplan, nach den Initialen der Beteiligten AUKUS genannt. Parallel dazu stoppte Australien die geplante Beschaffung von U-Booten aus Frankreich. Das ganze hat rüstungspolitische, geostrategische und natürlich wirtschaftliche Komponenten.

Die wesentlichen Aussagen dazu von einem wesentlichen Akteur, dem australischen Premierminister Scott Morrison am 16. September:

Today, I announce a new partnership, a new agreement that I describe as a forever partnership. A forever partnership for a new time between the oldest and most trusted of friends. A forever partnership that will enable Australia to protect our national security interests, to keep Australians safe, and to work with our partners across the region to achieve the stability and security of our region. This forever partnership that we have announced today is the single greatest initiative to achieve these goals since the ANZUS alliance itself. It is the single largest step we have been able to take to advance our defence capabilities in this country, not just at this point, but for the future.
It has been some time in the making, it is true to say. These types of forever partnerships don’t happen overnight. It has been the product of great patience, of great determination, of a deep relationship forged between our nations and indeed the personal-level working relationships that we have been able to forge between leaders, between ministers, between our systems over an even longer period of time, led of course, by the Chief of the Defence Force and the Secretary of Defence, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the many missions that have been involved in around the world, but particularly in these countries. (…)
As our first major initiative, it is as we have announced today, for Australia to achieve a nuclear-powered submarine fleet. Not a nuclear armed, a nuclear-powered. And to commence that build here in Australia in Adelaide within the decade. Nuclear submarines have clear advantages, greater endurance, they’re faster, they have greater power, greater stealth, more carrying capacity. These make nuclear submarines the desired substantial capability enhancement that Australia has needed. It helps us to build regional resilience as part of this first initiative. It is the first time this technology has ever been made available to Australia. And, indeed one other country has only been given access to this technology back in the late 50s, the United Kingdom from the United States. This is a one off, as the President in Washington has made very clear. This is a very special arrangement and a very important one for Australia.
Australia was not in a position at the time we took the decision back in 2016 to build and operate a nuclear-powered submarine. That wasn’t on the table. It wasn’t on the table for a range of reasons. So, the decision we have made to not continue with the Attack class submarine and to go down this path is not a change of mind, it’s a change of need.  (…)
The developments that have occurred since 2016 do now make a nuclear-powered submarine fleet a feasible option for Australia, which is what I first tasked the Secretary of Defence to inquire into. We now have the support and expertise of the United States and the United Kingdom. Next generation nuclear-powered submarines will use reactors that do not need refuelling during the life of the boat. A civil nuclear power capability here in Australia is not required to pursue this new capability. These are game changing differences in the technology and the opportunity that Australia has, but there have also been game changing developments in the strategic circumstances of our region, which continue to accelerate at a pace even not envisaged as little as five years ago.

It has been some time in the making, daran arbeiten wir seit geraumer Zeit – diese Aussage dürfte der französischen Regierung besonders sauer aufstoßen. Denn ebenfalls seit längerer Zeit arbeitet Frankreich mit Australien an der Lieferung konventionell angetriebener U-Boote. Und diesen Milliarden-Deal mit dem europäischen Land hat Australien zusammen mit den USA, aber auch Großbritannien quasi über Nacht aufgekündigt.

Besonders wütend war Paris darüber, dass Frankreich von den drei Ländern, zwei davon immerhin NATO-Verbündete, offenbar ganz bewusst im unklaren gelassen wurde. Die Abläufe zeichnete die New York Times nach:

President Biden’s announcement of a deal to help Australia deploy nuclear-powered submarines has strained the Western alliance, infuriating France and foreshadowing how the conflicting American and European responses to confrontation with China may redraw the global strategic map.
In announcing the deal on Wednesday, Mr. Biden said it was meant to reinforce alliances and update them as strategic priorities shift. But in drawing a Pacific ally closer to meet the China challenge, he appears to have alienated an important European one and aggravated already tense relations with Beijing.

Es geht für die USA vor allem darum, dem erklärten Hauptrivalen China etwas entgegenzusetzen, und da kommt ein mit dieser Art von U-Booten ausgerüstetes Australien als Partner im Pazifik genau recht. Denn nuklear angetriebene – das bedeutet übrigens nicht, dass die auch Atomwaffen tragen – U-Boote ermöglichen australische Unterstützung beim Ziel der USA, ihre Präsenz im Indopazifik zu sichern und möglichst schnell irgendwo in dem riesigen Seegebiet, pardon, auftauchen zu können.

Dafür sind die Atom-U-Boote, deren Reichweite nicht mehr vom Treibstoffvorrat bestimmt wird, das Mittel der Wahl. Auch wenn, so sagen Fachleute, U-Boote mit Brenstoffzelle als Energiequelle weniger leicht akustisch zu orten sind – allerdings nicht die Reichweite mitbringen.

Frankreich sieht das, wenig überraschend, ganz anders. Der Sprecher des französischen Verteidigungsministeriums äußerte sich, ungewohnt weil auf Englisch, am (heutigen) Dienstag in einem langen Twitter-Thread dazu. In dem es auch darum geht, wie sich Frankreich von Australien hintergangen fühlt:

In the last few days, everything and its opposite has been said about the Australian submarine contract. The safety of Australians and the performance of our industrialists deserve better than peremptory statements. A thread to better understand the Australian submarine affair.
France and submarines are serious business.
Over the past 120 years, France has built more than 250 submarines, including more than 230 conventional-powered ones. The feedback in terms of engineering and know-how is considerable.
The French project benefited directly from the technological assets of the Suffren nuclear attack submarine, as well as from Naval Group’s expertise, gained from numerous Scorpene programs sold for export (Chile, Malaysia, India, Brazil)
In many ways, the performance of the Attack submarine offered by France to the Australians was better than that offered by a nuclear submarine. Why?
Particularly in terms of acoustics, the discretion of a conventional submarine remains under certain circumstances paradoxically better than that of a nuclear submarine: a conventional submarine does not have a permanent cooling system for its reactor in operation.
The silent speed (at which a submarine can listen without being detected) was particularly high thanks to the pump-jet technology, that very few countries master.
The submarine proposed to Australia was of oceanic class, meaning it had very high autonomy and range capabilities.
France and Australian submarines: the customer is king
In 2009, the Australian Defence White Paper, two years after the start of the Collins replacement project, already said: „The Government has ruled out nuclear propulsion for these submarines“.
In August 2021, the joint press release of the French and Australian defense and foreign affairs ministers still stated, „Ministers underlined the importance of the Future Submarine program.“
On the same day as the AUKUS announcement, the Australians wrote to France to say that they were satisfied with the submarine’s achievable performance and with the progress of the program. In short: forward to launching the next phase of the contract.
Returning to the surface to recharge the batteries is inherent to a diesel-electric submarine. This was the Australian request.
A nuclear submarine has, by nature, a greater projection capability than a conventional submarine. The planned tonnage of the SM Attack (between 5,000 and 6,000 tonnes) was large enough to provide the projection capability required for Australian naval operations.
The Australian choice: bad news for… the Australians.
The first Attack submarines were to be delivered by 2030. With this new AUKUS partnership, it will be more like 2040. That’s a long time, when you see how fast China is militarizing…#FastIsBeautiful
According to a June 2021 Congressional Research Service report, the production costs of the last two Virginia SSNs ordered (35th and 36th) would be $6.91 billion, or $3.46 billion per unit (€2.95 billion). Much more expensive than a French Barracuda for example..
The September 17 announcement indicates that the nuclear submarines will be built in Australia. But Australia says it does not want a nuclear industry, neither civilian nor military.
Are we to understand that the United States will provide complete nuclear boiler rooms to be integrated into submarines, with teams of American technicians to ensure commissioning, maintenance and perhaps even operation?
Investments in infrastructure capable of hosting nuclear submarines in Australia, necessary to prevent any environmental risk, will be expensive and complex.

In den USA sieht das, wenig überraschend, nicht nur die Politik anders:

Nuclear-powered boats make perfect sense for Australia, which occupies strategic real estate just outside the South China Sea rim, a.k.a. the southerly arc of Asia’s first island chain. A competitor has to be in embattled waters more or less constantly to compete there with any hope of success. But like all Pacific nations, Australia confronts the tyranny of distance. The RAN’s current flotilla of Collins-class diesel-electric subs (SSKs) can put in an appearance in the South China Sea but can’t stay on their patrol grounds for long before returning home for fuel and stores.
By contrast, an SSN’s on-station time is limited only by its capacity to store food and stores sufficient to supply the crew’s needs. Some years ago, in fact, a team from the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments estimated that an SSN operating from Australian harbors could make a 77-day patrol in the South China Sea; an SSK could manage just 11 days.

Allerdings: Ob letztendlich die technischen Gründe ausschlaggebend waren, scheint zweifelhaft. Denn zu dem U-Boot-Geschäft gehört ja auch das neue strategische Bündnis (bei dem sich natürlich auch die Frage nach der Rolle Großbritanniens stellt). Ob es dabei so geschickt ist, Frankreich als im Indopazifik präsente Macht sozusagen auszubooten, ist noch eine weitere Frage bei dieser ganzen Geschichte.

Wie es weiter geht? Ist noch ziemlich unklar, denn ein Riss zwischen Frankreich und möglicherweise der EU auf der einen, den USA und Großbritannien auf der anderen Seite scheint unabwendbar. Die EU hat sich, nach ein paar Tagen Bedenkzeit, schon recht deutlich geäußert:

The EU’s top leaders on Monday bluntly accused U.S. President Joe Biden of disloyalty to the transatlantic alliance, and demanded he explain why he misled France and other European partners in forging a new strategic tie-up with the U.K. and Australia in the Indo-Pacific. (…)
“With the new Joe Biden administration, America is back,” European Council President Charles Michel told reporters in New York, as world leaders convened for the high-level debate of the U.N. General Assembly. “What does it mean America is back? Is America back in America or somewhere else? We don’t know.”

Wird der Konflikt im westlichen Lager, neben dem U-Boot-Geschäft auch die Frage des künftigen Umgangs mit China, die globale strategische Landkarte verändern, wie die New York Times vermutet? Kommt zur Unfähigkeit des Westens, einen gemeinsamen politischen Umgang mit China zu finden, auch die Unfähigkeit zu einer gemeinsamen strategischen Position?

Wissen wir im Moment noch alles nicht. Aber diese neuen Konfliktlinien kann Europa im Verhältnis zu den USA derzeit gar nicht gebrauchen. Es bleibt also spannend.

(Hinweis: Über dieses Thema reden wir diese Woche auch im Podcast Sicherheitshalber.)

(Archivbild Juli 2012: A U.S. Navy MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter flies over submarine USS North Carolina (SSN 777) during a formation exercise during the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise, in the Pacific Ocean, on July 26, 2012 – MCpl Marc-Andre Gaudreault/Canadian Forces Combat Camera via U.S. Pacific Fleet)